John Rourke
John H. Rourke (d. 26 May 1990) was the Assistant Special Agent in charge of the bank-robbery/kidnap unit in the Los Angeles office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In that capacity, he supervised Eleanor Wish. He was born in the late 1940's. He was very pale and sallow faced, as if he was sucking on a sourball. He was a few inches under six feet in height with a hefty build. He served three tours as a lieutenant during the Vietnam War, and later worked at the U.S. embassy in Saigon where he supervised William Meadows. He served as one conduit for the Devil's Three to smuggle brown heroin to the U.S. using embassy staffers, military police, and soldiers who were going home soon. One of these short-timers was Michael Scarletti, brother of Eleanor Wish. After the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975, he helped to get Ngo Van Binh and Nguyen Tran, two of the three Saigon captains that made up the Devil's Three triad, out of Vietnam along with $18-million in diamonds each and secured their entry into the United States. In 1990, Wish planted the idea with Rourke of stealing Binh's diamonds. Rourke liked the plan and carried out the WestLand National Bank break-in over Labor Day weekend, along with former soldiers and ex-convicts Billy Meadows, Art Franklin, and Gene Delgado. The four of them drilled Binh's safety-deposit box in the bank in order to steal his stash of diamonds, and they proceeded to drill other boxes and steal various other items in order to cover the diamond theft. He stashed the diamonds and other stolen items in a storage facility in Huntington Beach. In May of 1990, Rourke killed Meadows when he discovered that Meadows had taken a gold bracelet from the crime and pawned it, thereby creating a lead for investigators to follow. He also killed Edward Niese who had witnessed the dumping of Meadows' body. After stealing Binh's diamonds from WestLand, Rourke planned to steal Tran's diamonds. Over Memorial Day weekend in 1990, he orchestrated the Beverly Hills Safe & Lock break-in with Franklin and Delgado, but the robbery was discovered in advance by LAPD detective Harry Bosch and FBI agent Eleanor Wish. However, Rourke's position in the FBI allowed him to mislead the various police agencies, except for Harry Bosch. Bosch became aware of Rourke's deception after he received a copy of a 1973 letter from Louisiana Congressman Noone to Meadows. In a confrontation in the tunnel, Rourke shot Bosch once in the right shoulder. Then Rourke was shot twice and killed by Wish in the escape tunnel below Wilshire Boulevard when she found him about to kill Bosch. To avoid public embarrassment of the FBI, Rourke's body was sent to Syracuse, NY for burial. The FBI's intent was to portray Rourke as a hero who had been killed in the line of duty. However, Joel Bremmer from the L.A. Times was tipped by Bosch and ran a front page column with the true story about Rourke. Appearances * The Black Echo Rourke, John Rourke, John Rourke, John Rourke, John Rourke, John Rourke, John